Thursday, June 17, 2010

Solas

One of the perks of being a ballerina child in Copenhagen is this: Through the friends I've made in the theatre, I have met all sorts of artistic types outside the ballet world, singers, actors, musicians, etc. One of these is Anders Walter, artist behind the wildly popular Danish comic book series Solas.

I learned about Solas at the theatre when a poster and free promotional DVDs for the latest installment were left around the studios for us to sample one day. I went home and checked it out, and while I may not fully understand all of the words (though I am proud to say I can read a fair amount of Danish now!), I immediately loved the look of Solas. (And when I met Anders a couple of months later, while enjoying a night out with friends, I told him in my best Danish: "Solas er så, så flot!")

Solas: Opikayana is the first in the series. If my beginner's knowledge of self-taught Danish serves me well, here is the story (in a summary roughly translated from faraos.dk): For 15 years, Solas was waiting for revenge. As a boy he had witnessed his family being slaughtered by the tyrannical ruler of the world, Nedal. Solas gets one final chance for revenge when his father's old soldiers, led by Niloc, decide to make one last assassination attempt against Nedal and his world empire. A letter sent to Niloc says that a group of resistance fighters have got hold of secret plans of Nedal's fortress. With the hope of finding a weak point in Nedal's stronghold, Niloc and Solas go off to fight in the darkest and most dangerous part of the occupied world. The mission is straightforward: To destroy the vital satellite system that controls Nedal's huge army of killer robots, and thus liberate the world. The latest book, Solas 2: Den Stille Angreb (The Silent Attack), continues their adventures.

What follows are some illustrations from the graphic novels, taken from Solas's Facebook page. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do :)